New Garden in my Future

Janet and John have been scheming a new backyard garden. It includes much needed repairs to the fence and a new architectural Gate ala Albuquerque. I'm telling you this because yesterday, on Easter Eve, I was helping John, digging postholes and slinging bricks. That's me (above) preparing the holes for the Gate.

See that smile? I'm smiling because on the eve of Christmas Eve, I had surgery to fix my broken left wrist and yesterday I was handling serious tools. Besides the posthole-digger, there was a wrench to disassemble the fence, a saw to break down the old lattice, a lopper to sever old ficus roots, a masonry trowel to clean the bricks and a shovel for scooping dirt and lifting the old thatch of lawn.  No pain (beyond the typical 53-year-old arthritis in my thumbs), no blood, no cast, no brace. Three ibuprofen tablets and a nice hot shower set me up right. Easter morning I was ready to cook.
I could only achieve this recovery because of my excellent orthopedic surgeon Dr. Annette Billings and my spectacular physical therapist Sandy Canout. What a team they make!

Mom was out there observing the work, She was smiling because she wasn't digging, scraping and slinging bricks. She kept an eye on me and John to be sure we didn't lose any tools or step in the holes.
We were all remembering Dad, who worked with John to build and install the old gate (below). When he worked the posthole-digger, he pulled up a plug of dirt the size and shape of a one-pound coffee can. He turned over an awful lot of San Fernando Valley soil before they moved to Lindsay.